Get some Bitchy Waiter in your email!

Monday, March 25, 2013

White Zinfandel is Fancy

Two women are sitting at Booth 3, presumably on a "Girls Night Out." Under the misleading idea that wearing all black would be slimming and that sequins class things up, it is clear that these girls are ready to party.

"Hello, ladies. Can I get you anything to drink tonight? A Pear Cosmo? Or maybe a glass of wine?"

'We were thinking of ordering a bottle of wine, actually but we don't usually order a whole bottle. What do you suggest?" one of them asks.

I cringe at the question because I am the first to admit my lack of wine knowledge. In the types of restaurants I usually punch in at, bottles of wine are not a top seller. Seven years of serving breakfast and lunch didn't really require me to know a lot about bottles of wine.

"Well, would you like red or white?" I ask.

"What's the difference?"

I do a mental face palm and realize that even though I grew up drinking Boone's Berry Farm and California Coolers, I am practically a sommelier compared to these girls.

"Red is served room temperature and white is served cold," seems to satisfy their quest for wine knowledge.

The ladies hem and haw trying to decide what to get when they finally ask me the most important question that anyone who is ordering a bottle of wine can ask:

"Can we get a taste of the White Zinfandel?"

A taste of the White Zinfandel? What are you tasting it for, to see if it's tastes like ass? I can tell you right now, it does. It will taste like Mr. Kool-Aid took a piss inside a wine bottle and then shit out a couple of Splendas. It will taste like a raspberry Fla-vor-Ice that was in the freezer too long and got a mean case of freezer burn and then sat outside in the sun for two days. It will taste as bad as your make-up looks.

"Absolutely, I will be right back with a taste of our finest White Zinfandel."

I return moments later with two glasses. It would have been sooner, but the bartender had to dig deep into the reach-in to find a bottle of our finest White Zinfandel. It was behind the whipped cream, the huge jar of olives and an old container of yogurt that the hostess had left in there about two weeks earlier.

I place the glasses before the ladies who each pick one up and sniff inside giving their olfactory senses a a workout trying to decipher between a "subtle floral aroma" and "nasty ass whiff of Hawaiian Fruit Punch."

They swirl the wine around in their glasses and hold it up to the light to see if it "has legs." Finally, they let it wash over their taste buds and I await their reaction.

"Hmmm, I think I like it, what do you think?" one says to the other.

"It tastes really good. That is a very nice bottle of wine. I say we go for it."

They do indeed "go for it" spending a whopping $28 for a bottle of our finest White Zinfandel. They pair it with a hummus plate and spinach artichoke dip, because these bitches are fancy like that.

When they are done, the bottle is empty and they tell me how much they loved the wine. I can't really judge because I have been known to drink wine out of a box, champagne out of a can and a margarita out of a plastic to-go cup on the Q32 bus. What I can do though is write a blog post about the two ladies at Booth 3 who think that a bottle of White Zinfandel is a sophisticated night on the town.

Click here to follow The Bitchy Waiter on Twitter.Click here to find The Bitchy Waiter on Facebook.

50 comments:

I also serve in a diner, and also lack wine knowledge. I can, however, tell you that White Zin is a blush wine. I had a woman in my section accuse me of bringing her the wrong wine last week because her white zin wasn't white like her friends pinot griego (did I spell that right?) was. She said the name was "missleading". If you're going to order wine at a diner, know what the heck you're ordering, cause all I know is white (pinot & chardonay), blush (white zin) and red (shriaz & merlot).

I am a Certified Sommelier and I love White Zin...I do not drink it but it is the marijuana of the wine world. The "gateway wine" if you will. People start with White Zin, move onto Riesling and before you know it they are main-lining big Rhone wines. Any wine that gets people into and interested in wine is good by me...

Micah R is exactly right! The "gateway wine" - hilarious! Sure did drink a lot of it back in the day but, as Oprah says, when you know better, you do better. (and I'm NOT an Oprah fan but I do enjoy this quote!)

I once had a table of some classy ladies who got offended, OFFENDED when we I told them that we did not offer any white zinfandel selections. "oh you need to get some on your list...RIGHT AWAY". yes really. It took all my strength to maintain my composure.

28 dollars is 23 dollars too much... I had to turn in some receipts for reimbursement. I forgot that I had bought a bottle of WZ and didn't mark through it. The bookkeeper asked if I needed the wine for a lab or something and I was embarrassed because the wine cost five dollars and I had bought it at Walgreens. Staying Classy...

I remember taking my first wine order, this girl at a table in the back ordered White Zinfandel. How excited was I! To me, at the time (I was 18) she was the coolest lady to ever walk in the restaurant. I even made my first legal drink order after i turned 21 a fine glass of White Zinfandel!

I had a table that ordered two glasses of zinfandel. I worked in a fancy restaurant so I figured they knew what they were ordering. When I brought out red wine they were horrified. They had never heard of zinfandel and had assumed they were ordering white zin. Luckily I was able to scrounge up some ancient white zin that had probably been sitting in the refrigerator since the Reagan administration.

I love your blog. I crack up every time I look at it. (which is just about every day!)

I love your blogs! Totally crack me up! And for the record, I'm a box drinking White Zinfandel kind of gal. Obviously not a wine connosouir (sp?) but now know why I get 'a look' when I order a glass at a high end restaurant. I'm actually ok with that! =)

I love the "can we try a taste of the wine"? Because a $7 glass is way too big of an investment to just go in blindly. I also love when its something like Kendall Jackson they want to try...how can you possibly be a wine drinker and not know if you like KJ or not??

I sometimes wish for simpler times--when white zin was the height of sophistication. Hell, I remember when Blue Nun and Lancers were considered fancy-pants wine. We used to save the Lancers bottles and use them as vases. Oh, the good old days...

oh shit... working in a restaurant with "extensive wine list" have plenty of those lil episodes.

Had a 4-top of snobby wine lovers asking for a bottle of Kendall Jackson MerloT. (just cause Walmart sells it and they know its good cause they don't drink nothing else and don't know shit worth 'bout 'em wines)i get a receipt for a bottle, give to a mgr, they get a bottle from a wine room, i grab it in between of my 3 other tables waiting for salads, checks, food and my happy ass to tell 'em a funny story. bring it to the table, show a bottle, open, pour, swirling, looking, sniffing, tasting, thinking, giving it a minute to make it look like you actually understand how to taste wine and finally - "Yes, its the one, we go with it".

whatdayano, bitches. 20 minutes later i check back on my wine lovers - "we need another bottle, its the wrong one, you brought us caberneT". no shit. Kendall Jackson got plane ole labels that look alike with the only difference of "cabernet" and "merlot" in the bottom of them. someone stuck a bottle in the wrong spot in the wine room, mgr didn't pay attention, i was too busy to notice. they were too ignorant to know the difference. drank half a bottle, enjoyed it and would be totally happy if it weren't for a lady who got bored sitting in there and started reading the label. i do that with air freshener in the bathroom sometimes.

Absolutely every time somebody goes on a beer run and asks me what I'd like, I ask for a bottle of zinfandel. Without fail, I forget to say "red" and end up drinking "Mr Kool-aid's piss" because I'm too polite.

So what, these sound like they were just some friends spending time with each other. Maybe to these girls it WAS a classy night out on the town, you ever think of that? Maybe they hadn't really been able to afford wine up until recently in their lives. Maybe they wanted to go out and spend some money on some nice food and drinks that they otherwise wouldn't have afforded. Maybe they thought they looked nice. Maybe you're kind of a cynical asshole for looking down on these total strangers for not having "class." For fuck's sake, if you can't ask your waiter or waitress about the wines, who can you ask? Sorry that you're bitter about the fact that you have to do your job, which is to be congenial with the people who you are paid to serve. Maybe if you hate humanity so much the service sector isn't right for you.

As a professional in the wine biz, and a new student at the Napa Wine Academy, I laughed out loud at your description of white zin. You friggin nailed it, dear sir. I work for a winery and whenever someone asks if we make a white zin, I reply with a laugh and say "There is no White Zinfandel grape varietal on the Earth. It is not wine, and therefore we will never make it nor sell it."

Our services is widely spread across Mumbai. We are one of the most safe and reliable Packers and Movers in Mumbai because we take pride in delivering the best of house shifting services, office shifting services at a most affordable charges. If you need a trustworthy packers and movers in Mumbai who can safely shift your household items which is easy on your pockets, we are always ready to serve you.

I enjoyed over read your blog post. Your blog have nice information, I got good idea from this amazing blog. I am always searching like this type blog post. I hope I will see again…คาสิโน iwin89 ออนไลน์